October 8th, 2019 : London, England

Maybe the Presses pre-season prediction’s of doom and disaster for the PEBA’s only European franchise were based on the look of their offence which was becoming increasingly free swinging and ill-disciplined at the plate.  But

unfortunately they didn’t take a peep in their artillery room. There they would have found arguably the Imperial League’s best pitching staff. Even shorn of Leonard Carver who could be destined to become a PEBA great they posted the IL’s best Starter’s ERA, the third best bullpen ERA and gave up the second fewest runs. That coupled with the fact that London’s free swingers actually connected with quite a few balls (sending the second most over the fences) allowed the Underground to power to a franchise best win record of 97-65 and their third successive post season outing.

After falling to New Jersey 3-2 in 2017 & overcoming San Antonio 3-2 in 2018 they would now take on the 91-71 Kentucky Thoroughbreds on their first step towards defending their PEC Trophy. London would be missing their consistently reliable shortstop Chris Long and there was some concern in the London camp about how their offence would cope against the Thoroughbred pitching staff that were just strikeout machines, claiming a league high 1538 victims in the regular season. Offence would certainly seem to be at a premium with the Underground giving up the second fewest regular season runs in the IL and the Thoroughbreds the third fewest but London boasted two 40+ homer men in Decheng Wen & Leonard Ramsey while Kentucky’s Jaime Espinoza had split them at the top of the PEBA home run charts.

And so it proved, in the first two games in Wembley Stadium yielded just 23 hits in total with just one home run. Hiroyuki Nii got the series off to a flyer going eight strong innings and not allowing a single extra-base hit. Doubles by Ramsey and Bailey Rohr in the bottom of the fourth innings allowed Ramsey to score the game’s first run before Rohr used his speed on Tuo-zhou Yang’s single to add another run. That was all Nii needed. Thoroughbreds cut the lead in half in the top of the eighth via a single, walk, stolen base and ground out but it was far too late. Luis Mora strolled on to pitch the ninth and despite giving up two singles he struckout two and induced Rod Martin to fly out. Ángel Luján took the mound for the second game and it didn’t get any better for Kentucky. A Nathan Carter single in the bottom of the first drove in two but Thoroughbred starter Allen Johnson dodged a bullet when he struck out Tuo-zhou Yang to end the innings with the bases loaded. Kentucky smelt the start of something when rookie José Torres hit his second ever major league homer with one out but Luján put down a mark and the visitors went back to the dugout without any further score. Fast forward to the bottom of the seventh, Luján had allowed only one further hit and London had just bunted Tuo-zhou over to second. Johnson peered in and wound up for his 110^th pitch, as it reached the plate he could only stare as Lorenzo Valenzuela got his bat on it poking it past a despairing Alejandro López. Yang romped home and the Game Two scoring was complete. Mora emerged for his second ninth innings outing and sat Kentucky down 1-2-3 for his second save.

The series returned to Kentucky with London remembering that they surrendered a 2-0 series lead in San Antonio last year. With that in mind they had rookie Erwin Callahan on a very tight lash with manager Sergio Manetti ready to go to the so far unused  ‘pen at the slightest sign of trouble. The small pocket of London fans needn’t have worried though as Callahan certainly brought his A game to his first ever post season appearance in the PEBA. By the time he took the mound for the first time he already had a 1-0 lead courtesy of a Scott Morris solo homer and one double later he was out of the first innings with the lead still. He gave up a triple in the second innings but his second & third strikeouts kept the Thoroughbreds off the scoreboard. Striking out the side in the bottom of the third upped his total to 6 K’s while a Nathan Carter solo Homer in the top half of the fourth gave him a two run cushion. The manager glanced over to the bullpen phone as a walk, wild pitch & an error in the fifth cut London’s lead in half but Callahan got out of the innings without further ado. Four more strikeouts  his tally to 10 and

London to the bottom of the eighth with still a narrow one-run lead. Jesús López led off the innings with a double before Torres hit one out single and stole second to leave Thoroughbreds with runners on second & third with only one out. The bullpen stood up and a multitude of pitchers started throwing but the rookie calmly induced two ground ball outs to snuff out the threat. Once again that man Mora stood up in the ninth and took just eight pitches to clinch the win and the 3-0 series sweep.

So now London head home to open the Alliance Tournament series against the Connecticut Nutmeggers who they swept 4-0 at the same stage last year. Santiago Estrada hasn’t started a game yet for London and the bullpen with the exception of Luis Mora hasn’t thrown a ball in anger. With Chris Long fit to return to the play-off roster, London removed Alfredo Noriega from the roster and also demoted reliever Don Killy to make room for the addition of fifth outfielder Wilson Vélez fresh off the D/L too. Could the Underground emulate the feat of Bakersfield Bears in 2016 & 2017 by repeating ? Time will tell …